Tyra Banks Is Dating Oversharing Uber Investor Shervin Pishevar
The first and only time I was permitted to gaze (through a Skype window) at the glittering visage of Tyra Banks, the tech-curious TV personality told me she would "love to have invested in Uber." Banks, who launched her own photo app and claimed to spend "a lot of time in Silicon Valley," may have better deal flow now that she's dating Shervin Pishevar, an early investor in the $3.5 billion e-hailing company.
Neither Pishevar nor Banks responded to my questions about their relationship. But for the past couple months, onlookers have been agape over the budding romance between a humble-bragging, attention-grabbing startup financier and the Victoria's Secret model who transformed herself into a booty-tooching household name. The unlikely couple does share a common interest: Banks has already backed a number of apps (including one with Ashton Kutcher) through her own investment firm, Fierce Capital.
In December, Pishevar and Banks were spotted in San Francisco—dining out in SoMa as well as The Battery, the members-only, no-photos-allowed social club constructed with the spoils of an AOL acquisition. Sources tell Valleywag that the couple, who met a few months ago, are now official and even vacationed near St. Barts over the holidays.
Historically, one could count on Pishevar's Instagram or Twitter accounts as a namedrop loop, cycling between rappers, pop stars, and whichever founder was at the top of Techmeme. But at the crack of dawn this morning, Pishevar vowed to hit the mute button on social media, outlining his New Year's resolution in a post on Medium.
My First and Last Tweet of 2014. https://t.co/nWX2gVfA29
— Shervin Pishevar (@shervin) January 11, 2014
You'll find no mention of Banks. Even Pishevar's photos of a tropical retreat over Christmas were left tastefully untagged.
Pishevar recently divorced his wife Anahita "Ana" Pishevar (pictured below, on the far right) after they separated in the spring. As husband and wife, the Pishevars donated campaign funds together when he acted as a bundler for President Obama's last campaign. On AngelList, Ana describes herself as a cofounder and CMO of StyleBee, an "Uber for Beauty" app that launched on Monday. Her ex-husband has also tried to stretch the "Uber for X" pitch deck as far as it could go.
This isn't the first time startup investors have scored a VIP pass to a runway show. Thrive Capital's Josh Kushner has been dating supermodel Karlie Kloss, another Victoria's Secret angel, for almost a year. Last Christmas, Square and Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, a frequent investor, was spotted starboard in St. Barts with British model Lily Cole.
Everyone's a winner on America's Next Top Venture Smokeshow.
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[Top image: left via Getty; right via Instagram. Middle image via The Next Web.]